Last Day in Retail

Tomorrow is my last day working at "my" store -- hooray! A buyer materialized this week to buy my half of the store for a small amount of money (very small, ,but oh-so-worth it) and at the end of the work day we are signing the papers transferring ownership of my shares. I am so excited. I am really looking forward to having the extra time to spend with my family and work on finishing my latest book, which has been languishing on my laptop for the last six months. I am also looking forward to growing my other home businesses more, especially Earth Lodge. And, of course, I promise to return soon with lots more interesting posts once I've decompressed a bit. I plan to spend most of June teaching my son to dogpaddle and laying about as much as possible.

Summer is just about here, and I am so ready!

Change

It seems like every blog I read, every person I talk to to lately, everywhere there is lots of change going on. People moving, people changing jobs, pregnancies, new schools, you name it. And, of course, our household is no exception! I'm in the middle of extricating myself from my retail health center (need more time, more peace, less crazed dramatic co-workers). It's been a long-time coming, I've been talking about this for a couple years, but this month things really clicked into place and I said "I'm done."

Changing jobs and homes are supposed to be the most stressful times in a person's life, but I feel totally calm and full of joy. I can't wait to have a real summer with my son. And I am looking forward to focusing more on my other home-based businesses, especially wrapping up my book on natural animal health.

The Catch

My husband and I have a new hobby -- fishing. It's so much fun, so relaxing, and my son adores casting with his own little rod (hookless, of course). Last Saturday I caught 6 fish, we ate three rock bass and freed the rest (pumpkinseeds and a small-mouth bass). The only "catch" is that in CT the mercury levels in fish are high, and there are weekly and monthly consumption limits on everything except trout, which are stocked regularly by the DEP.

The mercury comes primarily from outside our state via air pollution, which falls into the water and concentrates over time in fish to dangerously high levels. I find this sad, really, really sad. There are certain realities of our modern level that puzzle me, and this is one of them: how can we have allowed this to continue? Why aren't there more restrictions? How is it that our industries and governments and CITIZENS consider the source of the pollution "worth more" than the costs of prevention?

The EPA has tried to put regulations in place, but our government has stopped them at every turn. What a disappointment.

For more information, visit the EPA website, or read a bit of recent history below:

"EPA has decided to develop emissions standards for power plants under the Clean Air Act (Section 112), consistent with the D.C. Circuit’s opinion (PDF) (18pp, 51k, about PDF) on the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR).
Accordingly, on February 6, 2009, the Department of Justice, on behalf of EPA, asked the Supreme Court to dismiss EPA’s request (petition for certiorari) that the Court review the D.C. Circuit Court’s vacatur of the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR).

On February 23, 2009, the Court also denied the Utility Air Regulatory Group’s request to review the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

The Clean Air Mercury Rule was part of the suite of inter-related rules collectively known as the Clean Air Rules of 2004. These rules address ozone and fine particle pollution, nonroad diesel emissions, and power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury.
On March 10, 2005, in a separate but related action, EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), which the D.C. Circuit remanded without vacatur on December 23, 2008.
On March 15, 2005, EPA issued the Clean Air Mercury Rule to permanently cap and reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants for the first time ever.
On February 8, 2008, the D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's rule removing power plants from the Clean Air Act list of sources of hazardous air pollutants. At the same time, the Court vacated the Clean Air Mercury Rule."

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

Now's the perfect time to use your bumper crop of backyard rhubarb -- or buy it at the store since it is in season now, as are a lot of strawberries. Today I made about $40.00 of jam for under $8.00. Not bad :) The real bonus, though, is that this jam tastes superb.

You will need:

3 cups of rhubarb stalks, chopped into 1 inch pieces.

3 cups of strawberries, cut in half.

4 TBS fresh lemon juice

7 cups of sugar

1 Lemon's zest (optional)

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 packet of pectin powder

Bring everything to a boil in a pot EXCEPT the pectin, and boil 10 minutes over medium heat stirring every minute or so. Add Pectin. Bring to a hard boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Put into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Put on hot 2-piece lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

(To learn more about canning processes and basics, visit the Ball website.)

First Pickle of the Season -- Giardiniera

This fresh tasting Italian pickle is a staple a a salad garnish at our local Italian restaurant. I have become totally addicted to it, and thus inspired to pickle my own. I plan to pickle many things this summer, but this is the first of the season.

For this recipe you'll need about 3 quarts of clean, chopped vegetables, to make 6 canned pints. You can vary the ingredients to suit your taste (and what you have on hand.) Other common ingreidents are pepperoncinis, sweet red peppers, shallots, cucumbers, and small onions.

Last night I used:

1 cauliflower head, broken into florets

3 Celery stalks, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch lengths

2 carrots, cut into 1/4 inch rounds

12 garlic cloves

6 bay leaves

Coriander seeds or Peppercorns

6 oregano sprigs

2 hot peppers, cut into 1/4 inch rings

4 teaspoons pickling salt

2 3/4 cups Apple Cider Vinegar or White Wine Vinegar

2 1/2 cups H2O

6 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1. Into each of the 6 pint jars, put 1 bay leaf, 2 garlic cloves, 1 sprig of oregano, and several coriander seeds or peppercorns.

2. Combine the prepared vegetables in a bowl and pack them into the jars, shaking the jar to help settle the vegetables.

3. Put the 2-piece lids in a bowl of very hot water to help soften the sealing compound and let sit.

4. In a nonreactive saucepan (aluminum or copper can change the taste of your pickle) bring to a boil the vinegar, water, and salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. Pour the hot liquid over the vegetables, leaving 1/2 inch headspace at the top. Top each jar with a tablespoon of olive oil. Close the jars with hot two piece caps, and process them for 20 min in a boiling-water bath.

5. Store the pickles in a cool, dark place for at least 3 weeks before eating.

This recipe is adapted from "The Joy of Pickling", a fantastic book.

New Chickens

This weekend we went to a local "Chickenstock" chicken swap. It was so much fun -- and we came home with three new girls.

Ladyhawk, Hedwig, and Kiah are "Easter Eggers" that will start laying blue and green eggs in about two months. They are 13 weeks old. Ladyhawk is the buff with black markings, Hedwig is the white one (obvious to any Harry Potter fan) and Kiah is the buff with white, named by Lucas this morning.

Our other chicken, Phoenix, and Petunia the Poodle are fascinated by the new additions to the mountainside. Phoenix has been very lonely without her sister, but she is not entirely sure she wants new ones. Even our usually aloof cat Milo has been spotted perched on top of the coop watching them.

Cleo, our ever-elusive outdoor mini-panther is shown here in a rare photo-op. Can you find her?

Love Your Trees

They Love You!

The above picture was taken last week on Arbor Day when we were in our back woods, which is a nature preserve, planting native Easter Pines. We also planted red maple, apricot and apple trees at our Mother's houses the week before.

Trees are the skin of the earth. They eliminate toxins, while they create and purify the air we breath. They draw up healing energy from deep in the ground, and can teach us to do the same. This Spring, take some time to sit quietly under a tree, with your back against it. You will be pleasantly refreshed and calmed.

Trees love us, and the earth, and are happy to help us. But they need help, too. Arbor day is a great time to plant trees, but you can plant trees most of the year. Plant native trees in your forests, and shade and windbreak trees in your yard to increase energy efficiency. Plant fruit or nut trees, and expect bountiful harvests in 3-5 years that will feed generations.

Wild Food - Foraging for Dinner

Tonight's dinner was an impromptu foraged meal: fiddleheads (young ferns) and dandelion flowers, alongside some leftover quiche from Friday night.

Fiddleheads are easy to prepare. Harvest when they are 6-8 inches tall. Remove the hairy or papery covering. Soak in cold water for a few hours. Boil for 10-30 minutes in several changes on water to remove bitterness (length of time depends on what kind of fern it is). Strain and do a quick saute in oil or butter with herbs and salt for flavor. Yum!

Dandelion flowers are super tasty. At my SIL's I saw she had a ton of them (in an untreated lawn, they're organic! And the only ones that are are really safe to eat.) so we harvested a small bucket worth of the largest flowers, without the bitter stems. At home, I mixed a whole egg and some water and dipped the flowers in. Then I dredged them in a 50/50 mix of Amaranth & Unbleached Wheat flours with salt and pepper. Fried them up in a pan with a 1/2 inch blend of Olive and Canola Oils. The sweet flower petals are the perfect blend to the slightly bitter green calyx underneath. Lucas adored them with ketchup, while we dipped ours in hot sauces.

We also went fishing for the first time this year (season opened last weekend.) Apparently the fish are biting in the rivers, but we went to a nearby lake where they haven't quite woken up yet... The only fish we "caught" were the minnows in our bait bucket. Lucas had great fun catching them over and over by hand and transferring them from bucket to bucket, often bestowing a kiss upon their fish lips. Yes, he made me kiss one, too. So if you hear about a "fish flu" pandemic going around, you will know where it began. Hah ha. He also let a few of them go in the lake, lucky fish!

Peeing In Style

Most women don't actually have penis envy (sorry guys!) but we do often wish we could pee standing up without undressing or lifting our skirts. And these days, apparently we can.

Companies like pstyle and pee zee are creating handy reusable gadgets that allow you to pee just like a man: simply unzip your pants, insert the 7-inch device and place against your privates, and watch the pee funnel out. Use it to wipe yourself, shake it off, and go. They even come in colors like lavender and orange, or clear for the discretely minded. I haven't tried one yet, but for $12 you can bet I am going to.

On a similar note, I just finished my moon-time, and thought I would let you all know that I use the Divacup and LOVE it. It is very easy to use, holds more blood than any tampon or pad ever could without accident, and lasts for years and years while saving you money. And no, unlike a diaphragm, you need never fear that it will become irretrievably "lost" up there. The silicone device can also be boiled as often as you want for hygienic purposes (I use a drop of unscented soap to wash it in the morning and evening, rinse with water other times during the day, and boil it each month before I begin using it.)

It comes in two sizes, one for under 30 year olds before vaginal childbirth and one for 30+ or after v.c. I was 32 and had had a baby naturally when I started using it, but I chose the smaller size and it works perfectly. Follow your own intuition. I wish I had known about the Divacup for the first 18 years I was menstruating...

How Green is Your Wine?

National Geographic just put out a great article about wine with some surprising news. They compared various wines from different regions in the world and how much they use in fossil fuels to get to you. What I would have thought carried the least impact was for my New York receiving area actually the worst culprit.

Here's the low-down. For a New York area customer, wine shipping from California produces almost 15 times more CO2 than wine coming from France, 11 times more than wine coming from Chile, and 5 times more than wine coming from Australia. Shocked? I was. The key is that trucking is vastly more wasteful than shipping by sea. According to the article, unless you live on the west coast or southwest, the calculations show that California wine is a poor choice (CO2-wise) for anyone in the US compared to other wines. I imagine the same goes for anyone buying East Coast wines, in reverse.

However, there are other factors to consider. California and other West Coast wineries are leaders in organic, pesticide free labels. And buying from them supports the American economy. In general, buying magnums also reduces packaging and the cost of shipping per ounce of wine consumed.

Of course, buying local and supporting nearby wineries is always the best choice from both a economic and environmental standpoint. You have the opportunity to meet the growers, and make new friends. Plus, many vineyards offer membership benefits for frequent buyers. One of our own local vineyards (the fabulous Hopkins Vineyard on Lake Waramaug) offers 20% case discounts to lifetime members -- all you need to do to qualify is buy 3 cases in one year at the vineyard: saving money, gas and supporting the local economy.

*Sip!*

Pole Bean Teepee, Mini-greenhouses & DIY Table "Refinishing"

Today was quite the project day. In addition to doing a major spring cleaning on the house and gardening outside, Lucas and I put the Blue Lake Pole Beans in around his teepee, protecting them from the chicken all the while, and gave our dining table a facelift. Here are the pics and instructions.

POLE BEAN TEEPEE

Our teepee has nine 8-foot poles cut from saplings, with a wide opening on one side for the doorway. It is tied together at the top with sinew.

Here is one of our bean babies. They sprouted about a week ago. The minute I planted them in the ground the chicken came over and pecked off half a leaf -- but I was ready for her!

We've been saving milk jugs and other containers all winter and cutting the bottoms off to make mini-greenhouses for our tender seedlings. This will also protect them from Phoenix, our hungry lady!

TABLE - REDO!

This winter I saved Plant catalogs, Better Home & Garden and National Geographic Magazines, and cut the prettiest flower and plant pictures out, including some neat waterfalls and forests from around the world (Thanks NGM!) I saved these up all winter while I watched my cheap IKEA dinner table get more and more scratched up.

Finally, today was a nice warm day with little wind, so I took the table outside and spray-primed it gray (that's what was on-hand.)

I used a paintbrush and clear acrylic paint as "glue" to paste down the pictures on the table top. The thinner catalogue pages rippled a little bit, but I smoothed them down as best I could. I covered the whole thing with a couple coats of the clear paint, and the used a two-part epoxy "liquid glass" to make a very smooth table top that will resist just about ANYTHING.

Et, Voila! It is particularly nice with these iron chairs we picked up a few years ago at an antique shop. My husband thinks the table is very pretty, if not masculine. Myself, just thinking about this table all winter got me through the dreary days.

Planter's Moon - Full & Hazy at Twilight

Plant Guides

Spring is here (even if it's rather hard to tell here in the northeast with April snow showering down upon us.) Spring, for me, is a wonderful time of regeneration and growth. I clean, I clear, I prune, I plant. I dig and a till, I run and I laugh. Spring is a wondrous time. Every year I pore over catalogues and websites, order tons of plants and seeds during the winter, and wait for Spring to arrive. When it does, the decision of where to plant becomes paramount.

Some plants I know just the right spot for them. Other plants I carefully consider height and sun requirements, and still I am not sure. All plants, however, get the last say on where and when they would like to be planted. Yes, you heard correctly: I ask the plants.

How?

I quiet my mind. If I'm outside, great. If I'm inside I imagine myself outside. Either way, I close my eyes, quiet my mind, and let myself feel the garden as a whole. Then I think of the particular plant or seed, and "talk" to it. Sometimes, I ask silently where it would like to planted and receive an answer. Other times I picture in a spot where I would like it to be planted, and see if I get a good accepting feeling in my body, or a rejection. Then I imagine another spot, and so on, until I receive the best-feeling location with the strongest feelings of affirmation. And sometimes I draw a map of the property and dowse for my answers.

Thus, this year my amaranth seeds, which I have never planted before, have asked me to tame and till an area which is usually filled with jewelweed each August, claiming that they will do very well there. My pole beans have asked for their teepee to be next to my son's small pool -- this is also very near our cream-colored house in nearly full sun, so they will be getting both prolific sun and water here. My fava beans wish to be planted where the tomatoes were last year. Corn wants to be where I had grapes and squash -- I am only too happy to move the grapes as they will not fruit on my property and have asked to go live with my mother who gets true full sun. My basil wants to be planted in a triangular formation, and my hot hungarian wax peppers in circle with a plant in the middle. Mint has asked to be planted among the glacial rock boulders in our backyard. And so it grows...